Japanese Body Painting Artist

Three very impressive and very different paintings have been shortlisted for the £30,000 BP Portrait Award 2016. Each of them is guaranteed a prize.  They are: Girl in a Liberty Dress by Clara Drummond - a portrait of her friend and a fellow artist Hugo by Benjamin Sullivan - a portrait of the poet Hugo Williams;  Silence by Chinese artist Bo Wang - a portrait of his dying Grandmother. Both

Two notable things have happened since my last blog post (Fabriano, R K Burt and St Cuthberts Mill - and fine art watercolour paper for precision painting) about innovation and change within the world of Fine Art Hot Press paper used by watercolour painters who paint plants and flowers to botanical standards. . Systematic tests of watercolour paper The first is that yesterday Dianne Sutherland

The Call for Entries for The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2016 has been published.  This is the 29th year of the largest and most prestigious prize for contemporary watercolour painting in the UK.  This is the one that most watercolour painters want to be selected for as a mark of credibility on their CV. The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition aims to celebrate and reward excellence

The National Open Art Competition opened for entries at the beginning of March. The closing date for entries is 10th July 2016. The 2015 competition attracted nearly 4000 entries and awarded around £60,000 in prizes and mentoring opportunities to 35 winning artists. Th 2016 finalists will be exhibited in NOA’s Winter Exhibition at Mercers’ Hall in October where the prize winners will be

I visited the annual exhibition of the Contemporary Watercolour Competition run by the Royal Watercolour Society on Friday.  The exhibition continues until 16th March at the Bankside Gallery (right next to Tate Modern and the River Thames on the South Bank. You can see a virtual exhibition here on the RWS website.  This has hugely improved in terms of the page of works, and each work also

This is the first of my blog posts about my interviews with 12 of the 13 botanical artists who won a Gold Medal at the 2016 RHS London Botanical Art Show at the end of last month (27-28 February 2016). Best Exhibit in RHS London Botanical Art Show (February 2016) Tillandsia by Mariko Aikawa The painting second from the left was bought by the RHS for the RHS Lindley Library. I've decided to

Last night I discovered that I'd missed an excellent BBC programme called Apples, Pears and Paint: How To Make a Still Life Painting which was broadcast last month. It provides a history of what has historically been the least popular genre of painting - and the depiction of fruit, flowers and domestic objects - from the still life painting in Egypt and Pompeii to Cezanne and Picasso via

This is a VERY overdue review of the RHS Botanical Art Show held last February. Initially I misplaced my catalogue and notes and then subsequently I was distracted (much loved cats dying etc.) and just plain forgot to write it up - so I'm now remedying the error as the RHS Botanical Art Show 2016 is almost upon us! Below are the images and information about the artists that won an RHS Hold

I included a link to a video of Sargy Mann talking about what it's like to be a blind painter - and how to see more and see better - on my Facebook Page at the weekend. These are some of the words you would have heard from blind painter Sargy Mann in a TED Talk - if he hadn't died before he could deliver it The video has now "gone viral" - with many people appreciating listening to a man who

One of the things I love to see is an art society which makes time to celebrate young emerging artists in its annual exhibition AND prize sponsors who believe in backing young artists. At the 2015 Annual Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters at the Mall Galleries, one wall is devoted to the Young Artists who were considered for the Winsor & Newton Oil Painters Awards (for artists

Artists Oil Colours - Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Orange Due to all the action taken by various art materials people, scientists, art magazines and lots and lots of artists, the European Union have announced they have agreed NOT to proceed with the proposed ban on cadmium in artists' paints. Some people will have read my previous posts on the proposed ban of Cadmium Paint: Will Cadmium be

Julian Merrow Smith of Postcard from Provence has many fans - but few have met him and few have seen him paint - until now. A student perspective of Julian Merrow-Smith doing a plein air painting demonstration One of Julian's recent students, Timothy Joseph Allen, has now posted on YouTube a 20 minute video on YouTube of a painting demonstration done during Julian's last painting workshop of

This is about a recent study about the impact of drawing and painting and art appreciation on the mental health and well-being of older people. Left Brain Right Brain A recent post to my Facebook Page has been very well received - and I didn't want to deprive those of you who are not on Facebook! Would you like to generate "a significant improvement in psychological resilience"? Start

The Royal Watercolour Society published their Call for Entries for the RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2016 last week. Webpage for the RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition RWS Contemporary Watercolour Competition 2016 Call for Entries This is a link to the Application Pack which provides the details about who/what/where and when. Who can enter The Royal Watercolour

The Call for Entries for the Lynn Painter-Stainers Prize 2016 has been published. The Prize has two aims: to encourage the very best creative representational painting and  to promote the skill of draughtsmanship It's a well regarded competition and one which looks good on a CV! An exhibition of c. 100 works selected by the Panel of Judges will be held at the Mall Galleries between 7-13th

The prizewinners in the 2015 Sunday Times Watercolour Competition were announced earlier today. Akash Bhatt RWS RBA has won the £10,000 First Prize for his latest painting of his mother - called Blue Room. Winner of the Sunday Times Watercolour Competition 2015 £10,000 First Place Blue Room by Akash Bhatt Over the years the artist has drawn and painted both his parents and developed a suite

I don't often write about the exhibitions of individual artists - however Rosa Sepple very much deserves to be highlighted on the pages of this blog. Rosa can currently be found in the Mall Galleries with her one woman exhibition "Out of the Blue" - in association with her gallery (Adrian Hill Fine Art, Holt, Norfolk). She's an elected member of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colour (

There are a very few art blogs which I have followed consistently in the last 10 years. One of them is Charley Parker's fantastic 'Lines and Colors'. It's a really class act! The header for the Lines and Colors art blog - note the quotes! There are very few people on the Internet who write with enthusiasm and real knowledge about an enormous variety of artists and illustrators past and